Kathy Bond
Year Joined MKLM: 1993
Country: Brazil
City: João Pessoa
Ministry: AFYA Women’s Holistic Health Center — wellness ministry, prevention, healing, income generation culture of peace in public schools.
Ministry Area: Healthcare and Health Promotion. Entrepreneurship, holistic healing therapies, violence prevention and training.
Goals of Ministry: To provide accessible courses, classes and retreats in various holistic health therapies, including hatha yoga, shantala and reflexology, at AFYA Women’s Holistic Health Center and other locations in João Pessoa and online. To promote entrepreneurship and sustainability through leadership, marketing and digital presence training. To reduce violence and promote a culture of peace in public schools through techniques to deal with anxiety and meditation.
Nonviolence Focus:
Prevention and Reconciliation/Restoration. This ministry helps people live presently in the moment by offering tools and resources to promote self-awareness, auto-regulation and healing. By connecting with themselves, others and nature, participants are invited to ground themselves in peace and healing in order to grow more fully towards their life purpose. Violent acts can arise from individuals who are experiencing unresolved trauma. This ministry invites people who have often disconnected from their bodies and emotions in response to traumatic events to begin a process of reintegration, self-regulation, co-regulation and healing. The Project AFYA in Action in Public Schools trains students and staff in resources and techniques to better deal with anxiety and promote healing.
Many people who participate in this ministry have physical and emotional health challenges. High levels of stress, trauma, situations of violence and uncertainty increased the number of people who suffer from anxiety. School children and adolescents suffer from high indices of anxiety, self-mutilation and suicide ideation. The ministry provides access to holistic health experiences for people who may not have the economic resources to invest in services or trainings and elementary and junior high students and public school staff. In 2017, the World Health Organization, published data listing Brazil as the most anxious country in the world and the fifth most depressive.
Current Ministry:
Kathy is committed to making holistic healing therapies and professional training more accessible to diverse populations. She works at AFYA Women’s Holistic Center on the periphery of João Pessoa. The center was founded by women — including Maryknoll Sisters and local women — 25 years ago and operates as a cooperative. At AFYA she teaches chair yoga and offers reflexology and shantala courses and workshops. Many of the participants in her courses are seeking skills training to increase their economic opportunities. She also works with a team of AFYA members on social media strategy to increase AFYA’s visibility and sustainability
Kathy teaches relaxation techniques — including yoga, breathing exercises, massage and meditation — to help people manage stress and anxiety in many forums, including students and staff in public schools.
Along with her husband Maryknoll Missioner Flávio Jose Rocha, Kathy offers retreats focusing on spirituality, environmental consciousness, healing and self-regulation at AFYA and other locations near João Pessoa. One of the main objectives of the retreats is opening up a space for participants to reconnect with nature through body work, conscious breathing, meditation, Family Constellation and Somatic Experiencing.
Personal Data:
Originally from Battle Creek, Michigan, Kathy graduated from St. Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana, with a double major in finance and Spanish literature. Immediately after college, she volunteered for two years at a community center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she co-founded an artisan cooperative for women and coached youth volleyball teams. Before joining Maryknoll Lay Missioners in 1993, Kathy worked at Bread for the World, a citizen’s lobby focused on hunger issues.
Searching to combine social work and advocacy in overseas service work in a faith community led Kathy to Maryknoll Lay Missioners in 1993. She reflects, “I am very grateful for the opportunity to be in mission for the last 30 years. My spirituality is nourished by ever-widening circles of people and cultures, which are interwoven with stories of pain, transformation and God’s abundant love.”
Kathy met Flávio Rocha while working on a social justice project in Brazil. They married in 2000 and moved to Berkeley, California. While there, Kathy was Maryknoll Lay Missioners’ Western regional recruiter and active in Holy Spirit Newman Parish. Flávio joined Maryknoll Lay Missioners in 2003, and they returned to Brazil in 2004. Their daughter, Maya, was born there in 2005. Kathy worked in João Pessoa from 1994 to 2001 and 2004 to 2010.
They served as missioners in São Paulo from 2010 to 2018, where Kathy worked in women’s prisons on health issues. Kathy served as one of the two member representatives on the Board of Directors from 2012 until 2017. In early 2019 they returned to João Pessoa to reopen the Maryknoll Lay Missioners presence there.
Kathy has a master’s certificate in organizational leadership from Villanova University and 630 hours of Yoga Teacher Training. In 2021 she completed 60 hours in accessible yoga training and social marketing from the Yoga Alliance provider Accessible Yoga Training. Kathy is in the last year of a three-year course to become a Somatic Experiencing practitioner.
